Suicide in contemporary western philosophy I: the 19th century

Hassan, Patrick 2026. Suicide in contemporary western philosophy I: the 19th century. Cholbi, Michael and Stellino, Paolo, eds. The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Suicide, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 125-138. (10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197654385.013.10) Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

Many of the major strands of thought in nineteenth-century European philosophy were informed by, and often conceived of as completing, a perceived collapse of theism and many of the evaluative commitments it underpinned. This chapter explores some of the major developments in philosophical approaches to the phenomenon of suicide that were, in different ways, products of this event. Two developments in particular are considered. The first concerns suicide in the context of the “pessimism dispute” from 1850 to 1900. While philosophical pessimism might be thought to vindicate or even entail suicide, many of the most prominent pessimists denied that this was the case, and took suicide to involve a special kind of moral and/or epistemic failing. This chapter aims to elucidate the different arguments that pessimists appealed to in order to ground this position. The second philosophical development of the nineteenth century explored is the concurrent shift toward thinking about suicide in medical terms rather than moral terms. Deploying methods from the emerging interface between the social and biological sciences, suicide came to be viewed as symptomatic of “sickness” as opposed to “evil” and, more specifically, a product of decline or degeneration (Entartung). Two predominant versions of this reduction are considered: suicide as a symptom of (1) psycho-physiological degeneration; and/or (2) cultural degeneration. The chapter ends by explicating how this shift reorientated practical responses to suicide in terms of treatment rather than moral condemnation—a development that, in some respects, the pessimists rejected, but in other respects, endorsed.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISBN:	9780197654385
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	16 August 2023
Last Modified:	07 Jan 2026 14:50
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/157972

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